Hitty, Her First Hundred Years/Chapter 5

Well, at last it turned smooth and blue again, bluer than I have ever seen water before or since. We were in the South Seas now, heading for what the men all agreed was the best whaling ground, though what ground there was about these miles of sea I could not make out. The Diana-Kate seemed to be almost herself again after the accident she had suffered in the storm. Her leak had been patched, and a new topsail and mast concocted. The long boats were repainted and given thorough overhaulings, irons greased, harpoons sharpened, and ropes tarred in readiness for the first cry from the lookout that he saw a whale coming up to blow.

It was about this time that Phœbe Preble, as well as the ship, underwent some overhauling. As the weather had grown hotter and hotter she had discarded her woolens. But this was not enough. One by one, she shed first her merino dress, then her knitted stockings, then her flannel petticoats, and last of all her curls. These were removed with great ceremony in the presence of nearly all the crew, who gathered about the barrel on which she sat to make sure the job was properly done. ’Lige, who did all such services aboard ship, was as thorough with his scissors as with his other tools, and when he had finished, Phœbe’s mother almost cried.

“This is what comes of taking her to sea,” she lamented. “You wouldn’t know her for the same child we fetched aboard.”

Her father could not very well deny this, what with the freckles and tan she had acquired into the bargain. But he only laughed at his wife’s head-shakings.

“Better have it off ’n full of whale oil,” he told her. “All she needs now is a pair of breeches. Guess I’ll get Jim to cut down ​those old nankeens of Andy’s. We won’t be making a port for months, so who cares how she looks?”

So breeches it was, despite all her mother’s protests.

I must confess to having some misgivings when I saw her in them, lest she might have changed in her feelings for dolls. But she was as devoted tome as ever. I went with her everywhere and that is how I came to be upon such familiar terms with whales, an advantage such as few dolls can boast. Now as I sit in the antique shop and look up at the whaling print hanging over the desk, it seems strange to me that I can remember just such scenes. First there would be the thrilling cry from the lookout aloft: “There she blows!” or, more often, just “Blo—o—ows!” Then the Diana-Kate would become all a-bustle. Our course must be changed to bring us as near as possible to where the pale jet of water, which the whale sent up like a fountain, had been last sighted. Meantime the long-boats would be made ready to swing out at the order from Captain Preble to “lower an’ fetchhim.” Sometimes five boats put out for the chase, more often three, the men bending briskly to their oars, as they sped toward that dark-gray mound that looked as big as Huckleberry Hill at home and yet disappeared as suddenly as it had come, to rise again at an entirely different spot.

Jeremy Folger was the first to “strike” a whale, but no one begrudged him the glory, for he had to drive more than one iron into the great creature and was himself all but swept into the sea when the whale became gallied and nearly upset the long boat. It was a sperm whale of extraordinary size, such as any captain and crew might covet. All the men received shares of the oil, and so they were determined not to let such a prize escape. With Phœbe and Andy I watched the boats lowered and saw them speed away, each leaving a white trail behind. There were five rowers in each of the three and their oar blades moved like one as they pulled away from us in the strong sea sunshine.

“Greasy luck, boys!” called Captain Preble as he watched them go.

How should I, a little wooden doll, be able to tell of such things​—of those boats that looked no bigger than pea pods scurrying through the water toward that enormous gray shape that appeared and disappeared so mysteriously, sending its ghostly stream of water high in air? I cannot believe that I did actually see this for myself, and yet I know that it was so. Indeed, as luck would have it, the whale made such a wide circle in its fight that it brought up near enough for us to see much of the chase. Andy pressed close to the low rail, shading his eyes with his hands as he strained to make out the figures in the long-boats.

“There ’tis!” he cried, so shrilly Phœbe almost dropped me over the side in her excitement to follow his pointing forefinger. “It’s white-waterin’ again. See it spout! Jeremy’s boat’s ahead. I can tell his red ’n’ white shirt.”

“Where?” Phœbe hopped up and down beside him, holding me close.

“Why, there, in the bow. Watch now, he’s goin’ to strike in a minute!”

The oars suddenly hung poised in midair and the little slip of a boat seemed about to vanish under the glistening dark mass above it.

In that second of time I suddenly had a sickening recollection of the picture in the illustrated Bible I had been forced to see during my stay under the Preble pew. Somehow I had not before connected that great sea creature with the whales we were to capture. Now I knew that they were one and the same and I seemed to see poor Jeremy instead of the man in the picture being swallowed up in that awful abyss.

But next thing I knew Andy was screaming out jubilantly that Jeremy had “struck his whale.”

“Now they’re off for a Nantucket sleigh-ride,” he told Phœbe. “That’s what they call it,” he explained, “when the harpoon’s in fast and they can just pay out the rope an’ follow him round.”

“But I don’t see the whale anywhere now,” protested Phœbe.

“He’ll be up again pretty quick,” Andy assured her, “he can’t get very far the way they’ve got him hooked.”

​It was certainly the truth. Presently the dark shape rose from the water again, struggling and plunging this time, trying to shake himself free. His great sides showed sleek and glittering in the sun, more water spouted into the air, and the sea was churned white and swirling by the gigantic lashings of his tail. How long he dragged the boat after him, or how many times he plunged under water to reappear again with more furious wallowings, I do not know. At last, however, there were streaks of red mixed with the white foam. A cry went up from watchers aboard the Diana-Kate.

“Whale’s gallied. It’ll be fin-out soon.”

Sure enough, before many more minutes the lashings grew less frequent, then they ceased altogether. The whale’s great body rose a little more out of the water, then turned over slowly till a sharp black fin showed plainly. There came another shout from those on deck and still more from those in the boats.

“Well, we got him,” said Captain Preble with satisfaction, as he turned to his wife. “Think maybe you could fix up somethin’ extra in the grub line to celebrate?”

Next day the cutting-in began and I was to know the whale still more intimately. Even after all these years I can remember how it looked stretched out at full length alongside of the ship. By the time Phœbe brought me on deck the morning after our first chase, the men were lowering a little platform upon which they stood with long hooks, knives, and other implements that looked altogether too sharp to please me. With ropes and various lines they managed to hoist the whale up, meantime having begun cutting it in such a manner that the blubber peeled off in long strips as neatly as if it had been an apple. But apple it was not as we very soon discovered once it was aboard and in the try-works. I began to wonder how there would be any whale-oil left to be stored in the casks, so much of it ran over the decks. The whole ship reeked of it. But no one paid any attention to this except Mrs. Preble, who said she had never in all her days smelled such a smell or seen such a mess of grease. The men only laughed and said this was “greasy luck!” They went their different ways—some to toil at the hoisting and ​cutting, others to mince the hunks of blubber into pieces for the try-pots, and still others to skim off the scraps that kept the fires going night and day.

Thick black smoke rose and hung over us amidships like a queer umbrella, while at night the light of the fires made a dull red glow. This added to the heat and oiliness aboard. The men worked con- tinuously with only a few hours off for rest.

“Got to push it through so’s we can go after another,” Captain Preble explained, as he came to eat his supper a few nights later, his hands so stiff from the work of cutting-in that he could scarcely hold his knife and fork.

Even Andy was pressed into service mincing and carrying. He went about very proudly, stripped to the waist like the rest, his trousers rolled to his knees. Sometimes his face was so black from oil and smoke that his blue eyes looked very strange in the midst of it and his red hair topping it even stranger. Phœbe and I were not allowed to venture very near the try-works. Her father had been firm about this.

“Can’t have you gettin’ underfoot an’ maybe scalded,” he told her.

So it came about that we took our place on an old, barrel-head some yards away, but near enough to watch much of the work. I was relieved we were no nearer, for I had no desire to find myself swimming in the boiling try-pots and I might easily have slipped in along with a piece of blubber.

Scarcely was one whale turned into oil before they would be off for another, and, indeed, on one occasion, when a whole school of them was sighted, they took several and towed them back to the ship. It was strange to see these enormous gray bulks anchored nearby with small flags fastened to our irons to show they were our property. By this time a couple of other whaling vessels had arrived in the grounds. There was considerable rivalry among them, even though we were several miles from one another. There was talk among the men about going “gamming.” One never hears that word nowadays, but then it was common enough among sea-​faring people. It meant paying social visits from one ship to another while at sea. All the men were anxious to do this, but Captain Preble decided that the cutting-in must be finished first There was some grumbling over this, and some very black looks on the part of Patch, who evidently began to feel he was first in command instead of second. In his time off duty he was often to be found deep in conversation with some of the men, and from his expression I felt that no good would come of it.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that the ship we had intended signaling should sail away without hailing us before the last whale we had taken was more than a third minced and in the try-works. Words passed between the Captain and his first mate over this and before long the whole ship was divided as to which was in the right. Patch held that the men had a right to ask for leave to go gamming, while those who sided with the Captain maintained that to call a halt in the work would be to lose not only time but also perhaps considerable blubber and so in the end affect their shares of the oil. The Captain went about his duties quietly as if nothing had occurred out of the ordinary, but down in their cabin late at night I heard him talking it over with his wife.

“It’s the last trip I take Patch on as mate,” he told her. “He come to me so well recommended I thought I was lucky to have him along, especially with his taking on more shares in the vessel than any of the others who applied, but he’s been makin’ a regular nuisance of himself lately.”

“Well, I ain’t surprised, Dan’l,” Mrs. Preble remarked. “I thought right from the start he had the meanest, shiftiest eye I ever did see. But ’t wa’n’t my place to pick your men.”

“He’s able enough,” the Captain went on. “I couldn’t honestly say he don’t know the ropes or steer a straight course, but all I know is I’ll feel pretty glad when we’ve struck our last whale and the casks are filled and we’re headin’ for the home port.”

“Glad is nothin’ to what I’ll feel,” his wife returned with a sigh.

But no one would have guessed from the Captain’s manner on deck how he felt about things when he was below in his own cabin.

​Mrs. Preble did her best in the galley. She scraped the sugar and molasses barrels clean to keep up a supply of cookies and gingerbread and stood ready and willing to fry up any messes of fresh fish the men might catch. Finally, however, our last and finest sperm whale was taken. All the boats had put out after it and two reached it almost at the identical moment. There was some confusion, and orders from those in command of each boat were not followed. At least this was the story we heard afterward on board the Diana-Kate. At all events, there was an argument as to which had struck it first, Jeremy’s harpoon, or another’s. Since an extra share of the oil was allowed the one whose iron first fastened itself in the whale, the men began to take sides among themselves. They neglected their work to discuss and argue, and when Captain Preble was heard to declare that neither should benefit, their dissatisfaction grew.

Still, unpleasant as this was, none of us dreamed of the danger so shortly to threaten all our lives, least of all I who had come to feel almost as secure upon this world of wood and canvas as I had in the Preble farmhouse.

I think it must have been round midnight; it was still dark, at any rate, when there came a sharp cry on deck and the quick thud of bare feet hurrying above us. Almost immediately after, we heard the call: “All hands on deck.” That meant something out of the ordinary was happening, though what it might be on such a calm night in the tropic seas I could not imagine. Phœbe woke up and was all for going above, but her mother said no, they would only get in the men’s way. Her father would come down to them when he could. So we three waited breathlessly in the hot, close-pressing darkness.

Then Captain Preble was at the door, his eyes red and watering.

“Dan’l, what’s the matter?” cried his wife.

“The ship’s afire,” he told her as quietly as he could. “Must have got started down in the blubber room, the Lord knows how. I’m afraid it’s spreadin’, but we’re doin’ all we can to fight it.”

“How is it now?”

​“’Midships and for’ard. ’T won’t reach here for a good while yet. We're lowerin’ wet sails on the flames; sometimes that’ll smother ’em, but I’m afraid it’s got too much headway.”

“And the vessel fairly reekin’ with whale oil, too . . .” I saw Mrs. Preble cling to him suddenly as if she were no bigger than Phœbe who sat up in her bunk listening. “Oh, Dan’l, what chance have we got?”

“Well, we won't give up fightin’ it fore we have to,” he answered. “I’m not one to leave my ship till the last, but if the worst comes to the worst and we do have to take to the boats we'll make out. It’s better round here than some places we could have selected. So don’t you go and get gallied, Kate.”

“Who says I’m goin’ to?” She was her old self again. “Phœbe ’n’ I’ll be ready when you need us.”

“Better get some things together,” he cautioned her, “what you and Phœbe might need, in case———” he broke off abruptly and turned toward the door. Even in the dim light I could see how haggard and pale his face showed under his tan and the smudges of smoke. But he squared his shoulders and went above. Presently we heard his voice bellowing orders and the scurrying of feet obeying them.

Phœbe and her mother began to get into their clothes and were soon busy collecting their belongings. Mrs. Preble moved steadily to and fro from the two chests to the bunk, where she tied and retied her things into tight bundles. Phœbe, following her mother’s example, collected all my things, the blue chest, the carved foot-stool, and my little hammock, and put them into a splint basket. After that she dressed me and laid me in beside them. She kept asking innumerable questions: Did her mother think the ship would burn up soon? Would there be room for them all in the boats? Where would they go if they left the ship? Did her mother think the men had set the blubber room afire on purpose? To all of which Mrs. Preble had to answer that she knew no more than Phœbe.

Presently Andy came down to our cabin. But he had no ​progress to report. In spite of all they could do, the fire was gaining on them. The wet canvas they lowered on it only made a dense, choking smoke before the flames burst out in new places.

“They all say we ain’t got a chance to save her,” he announced. “It’s just a question of how long we can stay aboard and steer her to the best place for bein’ picked up. Old Patch he thinks he knows more ’n the Captain ’bout it, an’ some of the men are takin’ his side.”

Mrs. Preble listened to him in silence. Then she began to gather up her things.

“You take this bundle,” she told him, “and come along with me. Here, Phœbe, take your things, too; if there’s any trouble I don’t aim to stay cooped up down here.”

We found most of the crew gathered about Captain Preble and Patch, who stood arguing by the deck house with charts and maps in their hands. We waited at the top of the companionway and, listened to them. Phoebe held my basket on her arm, so I had a good view of sea and sky and the familiar figures before us. A faint pink was coming into the sky, but the large tropic stars still showed pale and clear. Some of those nearest the horizon made little trails of brightness on the water, which was so smooth that the Diana-Kate scarcely moved at all. There was no wind to speak of, the sails barely stirred above us. We could not actually see the flames, for the smothering canvases were still down, but gray rolls of smoke curled up from between the boards and poured out in the region of the try-works. It was thick, heavy smoke that made people’s eyes water and choked in their throats. Once again I found it a decided advantage to be made of wood.

I cannot recall much of what passed between the two men. Indeed, many of their words meant nothing to me, though even I could tell from their looks and tones that they were in violent disagreement. It was evident that the ship must be abandoned sooner or later; the important question had now become how to steer her remaining course so that we would find ourselves in the most likely position to be rescued by the next passing ship. The mate was set ​upon one direction, and Captain Preble was equally determined on the opposite one. Nearly all the crew seemed to side with Patch, insisting that since the situation had become so desperate they had a right to take matters in their own hands and save themselves as best they could. Captain Preble was not one to give in easily. Besides, he felt strongly that there were more chances of rescue by remaining aboard the ship as long as possible and then making for some islands he found charted. But Patch claimed his islands were better. He grew more excited every moment and swore the Captain’s plan was as good as murder and he would not stand by and be party to it. There were mutterings and ugly looks and it soon became clear that feeling ran too high to be overcome. Several of the men refused to go aloft or take the Captain’s orders. Time was passing that should have been used to good advantage, and still the smoke curled up, blacker and heavier each time I looked. Andy complained that the deck scorched his bare feet, and Mrs. Preble kept tight hold of Phœbe’s hand, though she never took her eyes away from her husband’s face.

Suddenly I saw him fold the chart he had been holding. Very quietly he put it into his breast pocket before he turned to Patch again.

“Steer your own course, then,” he said in a voice that was so strange I hardly knew it for his. “Take the long-boats and put off, the whole plagued lot of you. I’d rather go to the bottom, me and mine, than bicker with such a comp’ny of good-for-nothing land-lubbers. Take the long-boats and go, I tell you, and it can’t be too soon to suit me!”

“Oh, Dan’l,” I heard his wife whisper under her breath, “what have you gone an’ done?”

But she made no outcry and stood quietly in her place watching Patch and the men hurry off to lower the boats.

“Stay here by me, Kate.” I heard the Captain issuing commands as if his family had been some of the crew. “You, too, Andy and Phœbe, an’ you’re not to move, no matter what.”

We stood together in a little group by the deck house, as the men ​ran to and fro about us. But not all, for Jeremy, Reuben, and Bill Buckle had taken their places by Captain Preble.

“We're with you, sir,” they had said. “We'll stand by as long’s the ship can hold her beams together.”

The sun came up out of the sea in a fiery ball and was well up in the heavens by the time the five boats were lowered. But this time there were no cheery calls from those aboard, no answering shouts. We watched them pull away in silence and I saw Mrs. Preble’s lips tremble as Phœbe’s might just before she began to cry. They had hoisted small canvas sails in each boat and as they moved off over the water they looked like white triangles of paper against the blue.

I shall never forget that sight, or the steady grimness with which the men pulled away, with hardly a backward look. Such kindly, pleasant friends many of them had been to us, too. I have often wondered what became of them—if they fared any better than we, or if, as the Captain believed, they steered a course to certain disaster.

It would be impossible for any pen, least of all one held in the hand of a doll, to describe our next few hours or tell how we waited under a sort of makeshift canvas tent the men hoisted astern in order that we might be protected from the heat and smoke which rapidly spread to every part of the vessel. Meantime, those three and the Captain put all their strength and skill together in a desperate effort to sail us within sight of the group of islands the Captain knew must lie somewhere to the southwest. To keep a burning ship afloat, not to speak of maneuvering it in the right direction, is not exactly an easy undertaking. Captain Preble and the three kept at it as long as possible, but finally even they gave in.

“Well, Kate, get yourself and Phœbe ready,” the Captain said at last, his face streaked with smoke and sweat. “We’ve got the stern boats yet, and Bill’s below gettin’ what food an’ water they’ve left us.”

A rope ladder had been let down. It swayed giddily as Jeremy clambered up and over the side.

​“Mercy!” cried Phœbe’s mother in dismay, “I’ll never be able to go down that.”

It seemed for a minute as if she were more afraid of this than the fire. She looked more hopefully toward the boat that had not yet been lowered. But Jeremy explained that she would be more comfortable in the larger of the two.

“You hold right on to me, ma’am,” he told her. “I’ll give you a hand over the rail. Hoist your petticoats right up and don’t stand on no ceremony.”

The Captain now appeared to add his encouragement. So over the side she went, hand over hand, with Jeremy going first in case she should let go.

Andy and Bill Buckle now came up with some kegs of food and water to add to those already on the boats. Captain Preble had his smaller compass, a lantern, some instruments, and the log book. He looked more grave than I had ever seen him. A smear of smoke ran like a dark scar across one cheek, his eyes were red and swollen.

“Bill,” he said, giving his last orders, “you ’n’ Jeremy take Andy with you an’ the extra stuff there in the other boat. Reuben and I’ll look out for the women folks.” Even in the midst of such danger I could not but be pleased to hear myself and Phœbe put in the same class with Mrs. Preble. “Keep your boat as close to ours as you can,” he cautioned. “If I’m right in my reckoning we'd ought to sight one of the group ’fore dark.”

During this conversation Phœbe had set me down in the basket on top of one of the large wooden kegs of salt meat, while she went to look for a piece of carved whalebone she had dropped. Her father, evidently fearing she might venture too near the danger line, went after her and, picking her up in his arms, hustled her over the side to Jeremy and hence into the boat. This all happened very quickly, in the twinkling of an eye, as the saying goes, though no eyes were in the mood to do such a thing in those last moments aboard the Diana-Kate. I was disappointed not to go along with Phœbe but comforted myself with the knowledge that I was upon ​one of the provision kegs and therefore sure to be taken on the other boat. So I waited, somewhat anxiously, I must confess, while the last preparations were being made. Once I thought I heard Phœbe calling from below, but the others were either too busy lowering the second boat or making too much noise to hear her. I knew she must be asking for me, and this did not make me feel any easier.

J heard the Captain issuing more orders. Then Bill Buckle began stowing the things in the second boat. The next minute I expected my turn to come—but it never did. For just as he was about to return for my keg and another even larger, some one shouted to him from below that there was not a moment to spare. Flames, higher than the men were tall, suddenly began to shoot out on both sides of the try-works and to wrap themselves about the nearer mast. They waited for nothing after that. I watched them disappear over the side—boat, men and all—knowing that with them went my last hope of being saved.

It seemed impossible to believe that I had been abandoned to such a fate, and yet I saw the two boats pulling away together. I could even make out the different figures—Andy’s blue shirt, Jeremy’s checked in red and white, and Mrs. Preble with her best gray beaver bonnet on because she couldn’t bear not to save it. Once I was sure I saw Phœbe point back toward the ship. I knew her gesture was meant for me and just for a moment hope stirred in me again. But the boats continued steadily on their way. Soon the smoke that still hung thick about the ship shut them from my sight. Now, indeed, did I feel that destruction was at hand, for what power can save even mountain-ash wood in the midst of a roaring furnace?

Furnace was what the Diana-Kate was fast becoming. The heat grew more intense every moment and now flames were climing the rigging more swiftly than any sailor had ever been able to ascend it. Terrified as I was, I remember that I could not but note how like those bright fall trees along the Portland road the masts looked wrapped in fierce, orange flames. The roar and crackle ​now became almost worse than the heat. I could hear beams crashing in below and a sound that sent answering shivers down to my innermost pegs—the noise of good stout wood being destroyed. I remembered that I, too, was wood, for all that I had been given form and fashion, so how could I hope to fare better than the rest against this common enemy?

I tried to think of all the cool and pleasant things I could—of snow sparkling on the old pine in the Preble dooryard; of lilacs and apple trees in bloom; of the spire on Meeting House Hill. I thought of the blue and white china on the pantry shelves, and of the crickets chirping through those crisp fall nights. How I envied them now, for surely it must be easier to die by freezing than to be burned to a crisp. It would have been a comfort to turn over on my back so that I need not see the fire eating its way nearer and nearer, but Phoebe had settled me firmly in the basket. I could not move.

“Only a miracle can save me now,” I said to myself.

Thad heard some one say that once, but it did not seem likely that one would come to my aid. Why should a doll expect more than a ship? Still, I had been made of mountain-ash wood and the Diana-Kate had not. I know of no other way to account for what happened.

Just as it seemed the paint on my face would begin to sizzle, the ship gave a tremendous lurch. I suppose some of the underpinnings must have burned away. At any rate, she pitched over crazily on her side with such force that the keg on which I had been resting rolled completely over. Out of the basket I tumbled; out I flew under the rail and into the water as neatly as a pebble from a sling shot.

“Well,” I remember thinking as I took the plunge, “at least I shall not be burned up. Water is kinder to wood than fire and I have heard that salt is a great preservative.”